Histograms: Our Light Meter
I have been photographing since around 1956 when my father
loaned me his Kodak Retina 2A camera for a summer trip. Of
course I was shooting film and dad paid for that and the
developing. But the expense of film and the fact that you had to
wait days to find out if your photo even came out were great
inhibitors to my photography experimentation. Back then I used a
light meter to determine how to set my exposure, but even that
device (or my ineptitude) did not always guarantee me a decent
photo.
In general in those days I wouldn’t spend the money (didn’t have it)
for film/developing and I hated the guesswork involved in having no
immediate visible feedback from each shot I took. With the advent
of digital cameras all that changed.
With digital I can afford to shoot as much as I like and the
histograms on the LCD preview screen gives me instant feedback
as to whether I am in or out of focus, whether I have too much or
too little light, and so on. There is one feature in these new
cameras that is VERY important to have and that is visible
histograms that evaluate exposure. The RGB histograms amount
to a 21st Century version of the light meter, one built into the
